Lithuanian Declension - History - Noun Declension Inter-linguistic Comparison

Noun Declension Inter-linguistic Comparison

The declension of Lithuanian nouns of the different declensional patterns are given compared with Latin, Latvian (in a separate section), Old Prussian, Gothic, Ancient Greek and Russian. Because Old Prussian has left a limited literature with not all the cases of all the stems employed, the Prussian samples are not full in the tables (the cases which existed are most probably already reconstructed from various data by linguists). At the same time there were fewer cases in Prussian than in modern common Lithuanian and mixing the declension patterns was more common, what could develop in a context of a slow decline in the use of Old Prussian, as the Prussians adopted the languages of the others, particularly German. Lithuanian declension varied in dialects.

The first declension. Sg. nom. ends in -as, sg. acc. – in -ą. Latin words of this stem ends in -us in sg. nom., and -um in sg. acc. When these Latin endings succeeded a labial sound, their vowel was ŏ: equos – horse, equom; servos – slave, serf, servom. Sg. nom. in Prussian and Gothic is shortened: tavs, dags. Such shortening is present in western and northern Lithuanian dialects: tėvas, -o – father, and tėvs, -o; dagas, -o – heat of the sun (from degti – to burn), and dags, -o. In Prussian there existed only a shortened form, and it developed one step further in a part of the nouns: kaimis / kaimⁱs – village < kaims < kaimas (Lith. kaimas – village, kiemas – yard). There are no neuter nouns in Lithuanian and Latvian, differently from the other given here: Lith. butas – flat, living place, Prus. butan – the same meaning, Lat. aedificium – building. Lithuanian instrumental -u derives from an older -uo, what is seen, for example, in pronominal (definite) adjective forms, pronouns: gerù (nom. sg. gẽras – good) and gerúo-ju (nom. sg. geràsis – that good one), juõ (nom. sg. jis / is – he). Lithuanian diphthong uo corresponds to Latin ō. For dat. sg., an ending -uo is also known in dialects. Lithuanian acc. sg. and gen. pl. are written in the letters with an ogonek: ą and ų. An ogonek indicates that the sound is long. Historically these sounds were nasal: vilką < vilkan, vilkų < vilkun. The form with a sound -n is used in some places in north-west Samogitia today. Latin pl. dat.-abl. -īs corresponds to Ancient Greek pl. dat. -ois and Lithuanian pl. instr. -ais. Lithuanian sg. gen. corresponds to Slavic, for example, Russian: vilko (also dial. vilkā) and Russian волка. Prussian sg. loc. was probably -ai, -ei: bītai (adverb) – in the evening, kvei – where; compare Lith. namiẽ – at home (namè – in the house).

The second declension. Lithuanian and Prussian o denotes a long ō. Narrowed more, it becomes ū. When more open, it is ā; ā was used in Catechisms in Prussian, o – in Elbing vocabulary. The ą, ę correspond to ų, į in dialects of eastern Lithuania and acc. sg. is kalbų (kalbą), gėlį (gėlę) in these dialects. The case of -ų corresponds to Latvian and Slavic languages: nom. sg. liepa (Lith.) – linden, liepa (Latv.), липа / lipa (Rus.) and acc. sg. liepą and liepų (Lith.), liepu (Latv.), липу / lipu (Rus.).

Fifth declension. Among variant declensional forms are known: sg. dat. -i, -i.e.: akmeni, akmenie, seseri, seserie. Sg. gen. akmenes, pl. nom. akmenes, akmens. In a case of Old Prussian emen – name, e is dropped in other than sg. nom. cases (sg. acc. emnin instead of emenin). A drop can similarly occur in other languages, for example: Lith. vanduo – water, sg. gen. variants: vandens, vandenies, vandinies, vandenio, vandinio, vandnio. Gothic wato n – water: pl. forms, for example, nom.-acc. watna.

The third declension.

The fourth declension. Prussian sg. nom. -us is known from Elbing vocabulary, it was shortened to -s in Catechisms. Sg. gen. -us is an innovative form, known from Catechisms, the older form was -aus. A word сынъ is given in Old Slavonic cases.

The second declension, -ė type. Prussian -ē stems became -i in an unaccented position.